I. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to tracking systems. More particularly, the present invention relates to a tracking system for optical telescopes, radio telescopes, satellite tracking devices, and for any other instrument where counter-rotational movement with respect to the motion of the earth about its axis is useful.
II. Description of the Relevant Art
For many years the ownership of large-apertured telescopes that could track celestial objects has been limited to persons or institutions capable of affording expensive mounting and tracking systems. In addition, such systems suffered from a lack of portability for these larger scopes.
Popularization of alt-azimuth mounted instruments such as the Dobsonian style telescope brought large apertures to the public, but these instruments lacked any tracking ability and had to be pushed along by hand in order to keep an object in the field of view as the earth rotated about its axis under the night sky.
However, with the introduction of the Dobsonian style telescope, the necessary equatorial table developed more or less in conjunction therewith has failed to provide the solution of problems related to use of the table with large-apertured telescopes. The major problem relates to the fact that optimally, with respect to an equatorial mounting, the center of gravity of the movable portion should lie on the polar axis. In addition, use of conventional tables also presents problems at extremely high or low latitudes.
Prior approaches to equatorial tables have failed to eliminate these problems.
One of the first equatorial table designs, that proposed by Adrien Poncet, utilizes a fixed-pivot along the polar axis and a pair of rollers coacting against a plane where the plane runs transverse to the polar axis. The Poncet design, while working well at fairly high latitudes where the planar surface can coact well with the rollers, is increasingly unsatisfactory at increasingly lower latitudes because the planar surface must become increasingly vertical. The design is useless for application at the equator.
Conversely, a later table design, that proposed by Alan E Gee, provides a table useful at low latitudes, but does not work well at all at high latitudes. According to the Gee table, a fixed pivot is utilized along the polar axis. Fitted to the bottom side of the telescope-receiving table is a segment of a cylindrical surface, the outer edge of which rides along a pair of rollers.
Accordingly, prior approaches to resolving the problems of known equatorial tables for Dobsonian style telescopes have failed.